


To The Moon and Back

by FreckledSkittles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Car Accidents, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, aka my favorite au as of right now, also pan connie, astronomer!sasha, bisexual sasha, idk it explains it in the story, painter!connie, so many things in here wow, trans!eren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:45:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSkittles/pseuds/FreckledSkittles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she first saw him, covered in paint, sitting on one end of a seesaw, she wanted to be friends with him. And then when she saw him, covered in paint, holding a hand out for her to take, she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Moon and Back

**Author's Note:**

> I just got bored and wanted to write Springles. That's all there is to it. I might write more with other losers in this universe.

When she first saw him, covered in paint, sitting on one end of a seesaw, she wanted to be friends with him. He looked lonely and was hanging his head, leaning over the handle of the seesaw to play with the tarp that tangled in his shoelaces. There was a bushy head of hair, with curls sticking out in every which way as if he had been electrocuted. His eyes were wide and hazel, a color Sasha had never seen. He always had cool snacks in his pockets and backpack, and he was so messy. On rainy days, he stomped in the puddles; on paint days, such as that day, he would smear the colors on his body to try and make a painting on himself. Sasha liked him, and she didn’t like how sad he sat, with no one to sit on the seesaw with him.

So, with pigtails bouncing and one overall strap undone, she walked over to him and pulled the other side of the seesaw down. She sat down on the seat and then pushed up with her legs, and only then did she see that he was staring at her, wide-eyed and afraid.

“You scared me,” he said. One of his front teeth was missing, she noted. His eyes were as big as saucers, staring at her in a mixture of bewilderment and worry.

“I couldn’t reach the seat,” she answered, and that was the last they said to one another. For the rest of recess, they played on the seesaw. No one bothered them or questioned them about it. And when they returned inside, he gave her his box of animal crackers.

Their friendship was simple at the start, yet always filled with adventure. Elementary school was a big playground for them, filled with classwork that bored them and playtime that thrilled their imaginations. In kindergarten, they snuck down the fourth and fifth grade hallways in search of the crystal skull. Second grade saw them create a spaceship (made out of cardboard and plastic wrap, because they were out of aluminum foil) and going to Jupiter. And fifth grade helped them see the creation of their own life-sized planetarium, complete with an asteroid belt and information on the planets. They won first place at the science fair, and even went to a regional championship and claimed second place.

Though it was only some of a few fleeting memories that Sasha had of her early school years. She had found her love for space and astronomy. Her mom, an inventor and mechanic at the airport, had made telescopes, of different sizes and functions, and her dad, a chef, baked cookies in the shapes of planets and stars. When they weren’t working and had no plans, they hitched a tent outside and camped in their backyard with her, staring at the stars and making stories of the constellations they created. She was their only child, their pride and joy in an otherwise lonely household, and they treasured her with everything they had.

“I will go to the moon and back for you, Miss Martian,” her father would say to her, and then he would put on the astronaut helmet her mother had made specially for her, making sure it was a firm fit, and they would be off in their cardboard spaceship.

Her life at home was nice for her, yes, but it still didn’t match up to the life Connie provided her. He always brought animal crackers, and she always made him a zoo, using her pretzel sticks as their pens. They ended up in the same classes, at the same table, joking around and gaining praise and attention as the class clowns. And if they had different teachers, they always found a way to find one another, even if it meant sneaking out during class. The teachers knew who they were just by the way they would escape out of class and make a mess in the bathroom, or how they drew on the walls because they ran out of paper. When they were together, they were a hurricane of laughter and mayhem that followed them innocently wherever they would go.

Sasha liked the swings because she could imagine she was flying up into space. It was a Thursday in third grade, when they had different teachers and had to sneak out to see one another. Connie hopped onto the swing beside her and waited for her. Sometimes, she waited for him and then they would start on their adventure, flying high into the sky, dreaming of big things and astronomical adventures for them to take. But this time, she didn’t.

“Connie?”

“Yeah?”

She looked up at him, and smiled. “I love you.”

He smiled back. “I love you too.”

It was the first time they would say it to one another, when they were innocent and didn’t understand the meaning or power of the three words, and it was not the last, either.

The real problems started in middle school, in seventh grade. The year before, Connie’s family had moved to a new house, so they weren’t as close to the Braus’s, but their kids still managed to get together. Sasha had learned how to use a bow and arrow, and she planned the family’s first camping trip. It was the longest she and Connie had ever gone without talking, and she had promised it would be alright.

When she returned, Connie was different. He didn’t greet her with open arms, like she had thought. He didn’t look up at her with bright hazel eyes, wide with excitement and enthusiasm. When she spoke to him, he only nodded and gave grunts in acknowledgement to her words. Even his hair, which had been unruly and curly and soft to the touch, was gone, replaced with a buzzcut that was so close to his head, it made him look bald. He forgot how to smile, forgot how to hold that twinkle in his eyes. But they still hung out, even if he didn’t talk. They stopped going to his house; she didn’t ask why. They sat in her room, and she would read her astronomy books out loud to him, show him the constellations and their stories. He listened, as shown by the glances he spared her, but he said  nothing, and would leave without a second glance. Sasha tried to explain it to her parents, but there was nothing they could do to help.

“Maybe he’s just sick,” her mother had suggested one Saturday morning, when they were fixing one of her many telescopes. “Sore throats are never fun to deal with.”

“But he would have written something down to tell me.”

“Try giving it some time, Sash. He’ll come around soon.”

But he hadn’t. She had made it her mission to find out what was wrong with him, why he was so strange, why he didn’t talk to her anymore.

She noticed that he hadn’t stopped drawing. He had always been skilled with any artsy utensil, and it had been his favorite pastime. Painting thrilled him; pencils were quick and handy; pens required slow movements and critical thinking yet produced beautiful pieces on the first try. The room in his old house had been covered with his paintings; one wall was specific for drawing. The others displayed them. Surely, his new home would be the same.

After lying to her parents and saying she was sleeping over a friend’s house, Sasha biked her way to Connie’s. She had helped him move in, and she remembered where his room was in the split-level. One scaling of a tree and a slow crawl on the roof and she slipped in through the open window. Looking around the room, she discovered it was similar to his old one: all of his art hanging on the walls, one side specifically for art, his bed sloppy and his floor covered in clothes. But as she looked closer at the drawings, she noticed something different. She saw the ones she knew, and then she saw some that she had never seen before. There was a pan, round and black and dark, that showed up continuously; sometimes, it changed colors, from red to green to purple. One canvas, pink atop yellow atop blue, caught her eye. The color scheme appeared frequently, she realized. The word “pansexual” and “pan” were scribbled everywhere, sometimes plain, sometimes in the pink-yellow-blue scheme, sometimes crossed out and angry, but the word made no sense to her.

Sasha picked up his sketchbook, the one book he never forgot to bring around with him, and peeked into it. It was filled with tests of body parts and figures and shapes, but also small headshots he had never completed, things he had an idea of but couldn’t go further on because he liked the way they turned out. She recognized a few as herself, with and without her ponytail, smiling, laughing, thinking, a body shot, a medium shot, a closeup. They went down to the last detail, from the small dimples in her cheeks to the birthmark on her neck, underneath her jaw. She wasn’t the only thing he sketched in such great detail, however, and the more she searched the book, the more she came to terms with this. There was a sketch of Krista, the popular girl who was as sweet as candy and one of Sasha’s good friends. Another showed Reiner, the nerdy kid who played sports and hid the glasses that were as round as Coke bottles. The last one she saw was of Eren, the only guy in school who wore pants as “he” and skirts as “she”. The word “genderfluid” was beside his face, and as much as she tried to figure out what it meant, she failed.

“Get out.”

Turning around with a jump, she saw hazel eyes gleaming back at her through the darkness. From the light streaming through the window, she noticed parallel tracks running down his face, shining against his skin. When she didn’t listen to him, only stared at him, frozen in shock, he moved closer, revealed the red around his eyes, against his cheek, in fingerprint streaks on his neck. It scared her, and with it standing so close to her, she didn’t know what to make of it.

“Get out, Sasha.”

They were the first words he had said to her in a long time, and the last.

Seventh grade turned into eighth grade, and everything seemed to fall apart. Connie avoided her like the plague, never speaking to her and never acknowledging her. She knew their friendship had ended when she made him the zoo on the cafeteria table, with animal crackers and pretzel sticks, just like they had as kids. But when he looked at it, distracted from his drawing, he brushed it off the table, as if it was a mess. Even Krista had to say goodbye, as she moved into the city and another school district. Connie was soon just a name, a face she could barely place, a person she couldn’t recognize. Sasha was alone. She was afraid and frightened, and she had nothing but her telescope for company.

High school had started off bad. At the end of ninth grade, after struggling to make friends and find people to talk to, Mr. Braus had a heart attack on their hike to their camping site, and he died before an ambulance could come and save him. Sasha and her mother moved out of the house soon after that, into a smaller house that wasn’t as roaring with memories of her father. Her telescopes broke, and she didn’t bother to fix them. She stopped staring at the stars, because there was no one to go to the moon and back, for her or with her. Even at her mother’s urging, everything was empty.

The previous years that had destroyed her must have been some sort of run of bad luck, because Sasha met Mikasa in tenth grade. “I like your hair”, originally meant as a shy compliment, turned into a period-long conversation of them getting to know one another. It was Sasha’s first introduction to homosexuality, her first female attraction, and she was scared of it. She started to realize that Mikasa was beautiful, and she noticed things she hadn’t noticed about anyone else: the stormy gray of her eyes, the ink-black darkness of her hair that caressed her shoulders, the curve of her sides and the plumpness of her chest, the aromatic smell of lavender that seemed so natural coming from her, the sashay of her walk and the red scarf around her neck that was a stark contrast against her pale skin.

Sasha had thought about romance before, and had believed that all women ended up with all men. The idea of a woman being with another woman was interesting to her, and one night she looked up all that she could of sexuality and romance and gender. She found terms that she had never heard before, terms that she had never seen, terms that described her completely, terms that brought her to sit her mother down on the couch and confess to her of her newfound bisexuality. And her mother had cried and held her close and told her how much she loved her, how she was beautiful, how proud she was that she was defining herself–and how dare she assume she would be upset with her, when she herself was a minority, being one of two female mechanics at the airport. Sasha had ended up crying too and she went into details of herself, of who she was. And the worry that she had felt was gone. Her mother was happy. She herself was happy. Things would go from up from there.

And up they did: the more Sasha saw of Mikasa, the more she saw of her friends as well, and they fell in love with her instantly. She (finally) met Eren, Mikasa’s sibling who adored acting and played guitar and saw gender as silly and went by Erin “when I wear skirts or something girly”, preferring to be called “he, she, or they, because I fit all of those requirements”; and there was Marco, a kind-hearted homosexual who was on the baseball team and was a history buff and had a face of freckles that reminded her of the stars. And she met Armin, the asexual panromantic who liked to sing to Eren’s guitar and read plays and whose romantic orientation gave her a brief flashback to a crying boy, with pencil lead on his fingertips, with tears streaking past the aims of angry-red hands.

The friendships she had blossomed into something she had not felt full of in a long time. Sasha started to use her biggest grins, because she was truly happy. She repaired her telescopes and started to set up camping outside once more, so she could look at the stars more clearly. When she introduced her home to her friends, they supported her in her decisions, asked to look through telescopes, examined the maps of the skies she had made with her dad, admired the posters of Armstrong and Ride hanging on her wall. They fell in love with her mother, who welcomed them with open arms and unprejudiced love and cups of hot chocolate. And her mother fell in love with them, treating them as if they were her own kids. She shared beauty tips with Erin, had historical conversations with Marco, hosted a book club with only her and Armin, and showed Mikasa, who had a knack for baking, all the cookbooks her late husband had written or owned. Mrs. Braus knew that Sasha had a crush before Sasha herself even told her about it. Though they didn’t start dating until after Mikasa’s sixteenth birthday, and when they did, it was to a barrage of praise.

“You go, girls!”

“Don’t go to Sophie’s Ice Cream Parlor unless the other is paying.”

“If you ever need someone to help you with a date, I am here for you, Sash.”

“I really like you,” Mikasa told her on their third date, and squeezed her hand where it entwined with Sasha’s.

“I really like you too,” she said back, and she meant it from the heart.

High school was fun, to say the least. Sasha joined a science club and met Ymir, “the hottest lesbian goth in school” who enjoyed space as much as she did. They hit it off so well, they had even applied to the same college and to be each other’s roommates. She managed her relationship with Mikasa and school; both had high academic classes, and both understood a loss of communication because of studying did not mean they were breaking up. Any backlash from their dating was shoved away, as one glare from Mikasa sent anyone running the opposite direction. Marco had gotten an athletic scholarship to the same college as Sasha that gave him a full ride. Both Armin and Mikasa found a liberal arts school in upstate New York that gave them a full ride due to their academics. Eren had almost decided to wait a year before going to college, but had found one with an outstanding theater program and had nearly fallen in love. The group of friends had saved enough money together to rent a room in a fancy hotel for prom, and they went as a group, even inviting Ymir along with them. With Erin leading the troupe, the night was filled with aching feet and laughter and dance moves that were hilarious in their horror.

It was after prom, however, when the makeup was still on and the heels were stopped from cramping any feet, that Mikasa sat Sasha down at the edge of the pool, both putting their feet in, and prepared her for the conversation that she had never wanted.

“How do you feel about long-distance relationships?” Mikasa wondered.

It took a few moments, of hand-holding and squeezes from both sides, before Sasha answered. “I’ve never been in one before. Or any relationship like this.”

“Hmm.” She nodded, stared at her distorted feet from the water and heels, and then focused her quiet pairs of thunderstorm. “I don’t think I can do it.”

Sasha knew what a long-distance relationship would require, and she knew that it would be difficult to maintain. But she also knew that a long-distance relationship was the last thing she had had with her adopted mother, Eren’s real mother, before she had died in a car crash. They brought up unpleasant memories from her, and she didn’t want to hurt the other girl. “If we break up, can we still be friends?”

“I never wanted to stop being your friend.”

“Okay. Then we can break up.”

“Okay.” They shared one last kiss, lips forming against familiar two-year territory, and then it was over. “Friends it is.”

Although there was disappointment amongst their group of friends, everyone understood. And they didn’t stop hanging out afterwards; Mikasa and Sasha still went to the old arcade they had planned to go to as a date, but went as friends. As a group, they saw that one movie they had all wanted to see, and ended up crying in the end. And they were still beaming, side by side, holding up their diplomas in their graduation photos. Sasha was glad that she had such a great group of friends that brought her back to life in high school.

College opened up a new window in her life, and only revealed more about herself than she could ever have known. Her university was only an hour and a half away from her hometown, and she knew Ymir and Marco would be with her. At the same time, she reunited with Krista Lenz, her old middle school friend who had moved away and was planning on becoming a surgeon. The girl had hardly changed in both height and personality, and when she introduced the friends to one another, she was positive they would hit it off–especially when Ymir and Krista couldn’t stop playing footsie and flirting with each other. Within a few months, they were officially, and unsurprisingly, dating.

In her sophomore year, Sasha discovered that she was once again catching the eye of one of her classmates. It was in English, when a lanky boy with a long face tripped into the seat next to her, his face burning red and his eyes looking anywhere but at her. She recognized him vaguely, from the seat a few spots in front of her, but she had never talked to him outside of class.

“Y-your, uhm,” he began, cursing underneath his breath at his stuttering, “your hair is…very pretty, a-and, uh…long. Fuck, I’m sorry–you’re beautiful?”

Sasha laughed at his clumsiness, stopping his nervous banter, and she didn’t hesitate in replying. “Your hair is two colors, and is very pretty. I’m Sasha.”

She found out his name was Jean, and they continued talking, friendly and light, and from that moment, they sat next to each other. Outside of class, they met up in Starbucks and went over the books they were supposed to read. Jean, she discovered, reminded her of Mikasa: they had a habit of making people think they hated this or that because of their personalities, but once someone saw past the mask, they found the truth. Jean loved to read, and devoured books quicker than even Armin. He saw things in them that others couldn’t, and she liked to hear him talk about it. Eventually, they found their way to her dorm, laying on the bed, her head on his chest as she listened to his heartbeat and his theory about “Frankenstein” and how he really felt about “Hamlet”. Eventually, when they realized how deep their feelings went, his rants and her listening turned into a session of lips and skin touching skin. Jean liked to explore it, underneath her clothes, massaging her chest and kissing up and down her neck, but any mention of penetration and he froze, a deer in headlights. He didn’t have to say it for her to know; Sasha understood, revealed her own sexuality to him, even if it was different from his, and nothing else was said about it.

They never confirmed their relationship as a couple, though others saw them as it. Jean and Sasha liked to joke around with one another, jabbing at each other’s sides, tripping one another, wrestling the other to the ground. But she saw who he liked, how his eyes had first lit up when he shook a hand scattered with freckles across the knuckles, how he stammered over words and got anxious in response to a friendly smile, how he attended every baseball game he could just to see him play, amber eyes wandering with divine interest at a rather appealing bottom.

“Jean, you play a terrible straight man,” she joked with him at one game, stealing his Cracker Jack’s. “You should ask him out already.”

If it weren’t for her, Jean and Marco would still be standing in the corner, talking about who knew what for hours and avoiding the fact that their hands had intertwined and fit perfectly.

In her junior year, Sasha announced that she was going to become an astronaut. She was inspired by Sally Ride and was determined to make it, just like she had. And those she told, her close friends from and outside of college, her mother, her professors, all pushed for her. It was towards the end of her senior year, however, that Jean invited Sasha to a traveling art show in town. He was going to read something he had written, and copies of his book were even going to be on sale. Even if it hadn’t, however, she still would have gone, because she needed to breath outside of textbooks and studying and crams.

Krista had dressed her, because “sweatpants and hoodies that are this dirty aren’t acceptable for society”. Even Erin, visiting for a few nights, had decided to help her out, curling her hair while Krista prepared her outfit: a red dress she hadn’t worn in a year or so and only had for special occasions, accompanied by a black belt and matching flats. Sasha rarely got dressed up, and when she was ready, it was like a new person had been created from scratch.

The trio and Ymir carpooled, in agreement to meet Jean and Marco there. It was only ten minutes away from Krista and Ymir’s apartment, in the convention complex that had enough space for this event.

The art was definitely impressive, Sasha decided as they roamed the stations and eyed them one by one. Jean wouldn’t be speaking for another thirty minutes or so, and this was the best option they had to pass the time. Even if he and Erin had to be pulled apart to avoid a fight (the duo had never gotten along for some reason–something about being two sides of the same coin, Marco had said), the walking helped. It kept them active, it kept them alert, it kept them interested.

When they reached the art on canvas, they had split up. Ymir and Jean liked to see the more abstract art and figure out what it meant. Krista and Marco liked scenes of people, everyday lives, historical events, anything that they could relate to. Sasha and Erin simply wandered, looking for a more general conclusion than what their preference was. Arm in arm, the two strolled about, commenting on the paintings, making up stories about the people they passed, and then she saw it.

Its name was “To The Moon and Back”, and it had certainly gathered eyes due to its bigger size and contrast of colors when comparing it to the other works of its size. It was a medium closeup of an astronaut, in gear and all, surrounded by stars and space and everything that was beautiful and unknown in the sky. The astronaut’s helmet revealed two separte things: one side, the reflection of the sun and the other, the left side of a person’s face: a female, smiling with a small dimple in her cheek and hazelnut eyes, brown hair falling around the side of her face that was shown. It was her, she knew the instant she saw it, and she didn’t have to look far to see who was the artist. She didn’t even look at the namecard to see it. When she turned to look for him, he was already standing there, discovering who was by her and mirroring her exact feelings.

When Sasha had last seen Connie, he was a seventh grader trembling from tears and hands that had done him harm. He wasn’t tall, as if he had never been able to get past his five-foot-two height in their nine years of separation. His hair was still kept shaven down, close to his head though he would most likely be needing a trim soon. And his clothes were simple, not too fancy, just a dress shirt and slacks. There were no marks on his face or neck, no tears. His eyes were still that shocking color of hazel, that mixture of blue and green that flickered with gray in the right light. They expelled confusion and heartache and shock, not expecting her, ever, and embarrassed that she had come to see a painting such as this one.

“Hi.”

He was the first to speak, to break their silence among the sea of voices in the gallery. It had barely matured over the years, containing a bounce of youth with him, as if he was ready to throw paint at the walls and use his fingers to create art.

Sasha didn’t know what to say, else she stumble over her words and fall apart, so she went for a safe approach. “Hi.”

He laughed, the sound light and relieved, and his shoulders relaxed. “I, uhh. This is a surprise, hah.”

“Yeah. It is.” She looked around for Erin, as a safety net next to her, but she didn’t see her anywhere. She must have sensed the mood and left them for privacy, something she both thanked and cursed her friend for doing.

“So, uhh–”

“I–”

Their speaking in unison caused them to stop and laugh, smiles genuine, as if they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years and were catching up. That would have been the scenario, if their last interaction hadn’t involved the spilling of an animal cracker zoo and pretzels in the cafeteria.

“You go first,” Sasha insisted.

“Alright,” he nodded, and his confidence rose. “Err–heh, I never learned how to do this correctly–” Connie paused, his eyes on his shoes, and then he dared a peek up at her. “I’ve missed you. A lot. And I know we didn’t end on the right foot, but–”

“Why is that?” The question was blurted out, quick, interrupting, and the brunette found herself retreating backwards, as if she had startled a sleeping animal. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt–”

“No, no, you deserve to know. I wasn’t fair to you, was I?” When he received no protest, he took a glance around them and then nodded to the exit. “We should probably go somewhere more private than this, though.”

“Yeah, that would be better.”

“…I know a place we can go.”

And so Connie led her to a small room right next to where the main event would be held. Luckily, and possibly, it would be a convenient way to get back in time for Jean’s speech. Though by the time they had locked and closed the door, the event was already getting started. Her cell phone buzzed with life, but she silenced it immediately.

They talked for what felt like years, to make up for the time they spent separate. Sasha. learned about Connie’s life, how his mother put his hands on him with anger for preaching about loving others with no labels, how his family looked at him with eyes of hate and disgust and drove him out of the house without saying a word to him. He informed her of his dropping out of high school and running away, working at a library (“me, at a library, of all places”) and selling his art when he could. He lived in a homeless shelter before he had enough money to buy an apartment. Sasha couldn’t help but be proud of him for growing up early, for making a living for himself, for loving himself and knowing who he was. And when he confessed his pansexuality, he nearly cried when she confessed her bisexuality, and they hugged, his bony yet firm, yet so perfect, so natural, so right.

And then it was her turn, and she knew she was ready to let him back in. She told him about the death of her father (at that, he pulled her close to him and she swore she could have wept right there) and the loneliness she struggled from. She told him about Mikasa and the light she brought into her life, about Eren and Erin (and the difference in pronunciation), Marco and Armin and Ymir. She let him know about college and her major, her dreams for the future, the friendship she had with Krista and Jean, how she was happy and liked where she was. And when she told him that, he smiled wide, just like he used to, toothy and bright and full of life, and it broke her. The tears fell before she even registered they were out; Connie held her face in his, caressing her cheeks and wiping the streaks away. He assured her with soft whispers and listened to her explanation, of how she was happy she had found him and had taken her into his life once more.

And then they kissed, gentle and slow and steady. He tasted like Diet Coke and smelled like fresh-baked cookies, and she took it in greedily, unable to get enough. They broke apart briefly, but only to breathe, and resumed their locked state once more. His hands grasped her back with curled fingers, desperate and tight and unwilling to release. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him closer despite the height difference, pulling him with her as she stumbled out of her shoes and onto the table behind her. He hit his knee and cursed against her, and she let out a laugh and scratched the back of his head. And he grinned and laughed with her, and he peppered her chin and jaw with small pecks, inhaling her and digging his face into her shoulder.

“We’re on a table,” she stated, dazed from the kiss and twirling their fingers together.

“We are on a table,” he agreed with a nod.

She chuckled, gazing at him, his smile that was so wide, his grasp that was gentle to the touch. “I love you.”

A pause, long enough to scare her to silence and clutch her throat, to convince her that he didn’t want to hear that, but he kissed her once more, passionate and strong, stopping her doubts.

“I love you too.”

He shifted between her legs so that he could lay comfortably, and then he placed her head against her heart. She reached up and ran her free hand over his head, against the cool softness of what little hair there was on his head. Jean had started to speak outside of the room, and they sat and listened to it, each syllable smooth and fluid. It was melodic and soothing to hear, and when she told Connie that the male speaking was her friend, he smiled and commented on how great of a writer he was.

_“To the moon and back I’ll go_

_for a beauty as sweet as you_

_Because I love you like no one else can_

_And I know you’ll do the same, too”_

After the rest of his poem was read, he explained it and thanked the individuals who had inspired him to write it: Marco, of course, and Sasha as well, “who would have never given me the courage to confess my love to Marco if she didn’t love me for me as well”.

“His poem was pretty,” Connie stated, slightly muffled.

“He’s a great writer,” Sasha hummed, and paused to listen to more of Jean’s speech. “He says he hates books, but if you bring one up, he won’t stop talking about it.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

“Huh.”

The ceremony ended not too soon after that, and they realized the time. This, as far as she knew, was the last time she could see Connie, and when he straightened up to leave, she pulled him back down and kissed him hard. She drowned in his kiss, the hand on her hip, the one that still had failed to untangle from hers, the soft breaths and giggles he made as they pulled apart.

“I can give you my number, if you want,” he suggested, resting his forehead against hers.

“I would love that,” she nodded vigorously.

Still grinning, he scribbled the number to his cell phone on her arm, adding a smiley face at the end, kissing her wrist and enticing a laugh.

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“Not really; I gotta teach an art class at the library, but that’s not until six.”

“We can hang out tomorrow. I know that Erin and Marco were planning on doing something, so I’m free.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“…yeah. It does.”

Sasha walked out of the complex with a silly grin on her face, and she nearly skipped out into the parking garage, shoes in one hand and her cell in the other. She had called Marco and asked for their location, apologizing for her disappearance, promising him and a shouting Erin that she had something amazing to tell them, but she never got the chance. The car backing up hit her before she could explain herself to them. Her head hit the ground and the phone flew out of her hand before she could realize what had happened. The world from her eyes went black and her senses died.

When she finally woke up, the world was blurry to the point of distortion, and it scared her to the point of panic. She struggled to sit up, searching for something to grip, the beeping from the machine beside her only increasing her gasping and worry. But a hand grabbed her, soothed her, kissed her forehead and promised that everything was alright, and she relaxed. Her mother continued to comfort her, holding her close and letting a few tears slip down her face in relief.

The doctor appeared and checked her vitals, informing her of what had happened, of a car hitting her as it backed up and knocking her to the ground. Her visual cortex, the part of her brain responsible for her eyesight, was hit hard and damaged her eyes to the point of needing glasses. There was an appointment at the eye doctor, ready for her when she was cleared from the hospital. Her 20/20 vision, something she had prided herself on and had sworn would help get her into space, was destroyed. And Sasha cried harder than she could ever remember.

When her visitors came in, identifying themselves by name, it was with remorse and strong love. Eren and Armin delivered her flowers, “the kind you like”, and Mikasa held her hand and kissed her forehead until she stopped weeping; Jean and Marco handed her a teddy bear, relieved that she was alright; Krista and Ymir had a surprise for her, they said, that they could only show once she was out. She didn’t ask about Connie, in fear that she had missed the date they had scheduled.

Two days later, wearing the only pair of glasses she liked and that fit, she was out of the hospital. She returned to her classes and realized she was a week behind. Luckily, her professors helped her, keeping her a few minutes after class to get what she needed. She was thankful they were willing to help her.

Sasha realized that the numbers on her arm were gone when she took a shower that night, and she would have cried if she had found the strength to do so. She was weary, tired, exhausted from the stress that weighed down on her shoulders and prevented her from relaxing. All she wanted, all she desired, was relief.

When she got out of her shower and looked for clothes to change, cursing her glasses for fogging up, Mikasa called her and asked her to come out with them. There was no room for refusal, and no time to waste. Eren and Armin were already on their way.

The two boys, smiling and hugging her with all they had, escorted her to the car like she was royalty. They closed the door for her, gave her a drink, asked if she was comfortable as they drove to their destination. Pulling down a dirt road with trees that touched the sky looming over them, they assured her of the surprise and her safety.

It was an old barn, the stereotypical red with white trim, that looked like it had been painted anew. The meaning of it was confusing, but she stepped out of the car regardless, once again led there by her escorts like a celebrity. And once she was inside, she swore she had lost her breath.

The entire inside was completely obsidian, wafting with the smell of fresh paint that hadn’t fully settled. The inside formed a semi-circle that displayed constellations, planets, galaxies far away, continuously rotating, all displayed from a star machine in the middle. With the flick of a switch, where she didn’t know, the machine powered off and the overhang up ahead opened up to reveal the real thing, stars twinkling down at her, recognizable and so pretty as they blinked at the earth.

And in the middle of it all stood Connie, blotched from head to toe in paint, smiling nervously. When their eyes met, he waved at her and moved closer to her. He pecked the tip of her nose, and then her cheek, and she pecked his lips, short and quick and fleeting.

“Hi.”

Sasha stifled a laugh. “Hi.”

Connie pointed to the observatory around them. “I painted this for you. I wanted to see you in the hospital, but I was busy with this. Plus, Jean said he would kick my ass if I did.”

This time, her amusement was unrestrained. “How did you piss him off?”

“Err, Marco mentioned something about being overprotective and said that Jean saw me writing my number on your arm as harassment.”

An eyeroll, a scoff. “Yeah. Sounds like him.”

A nervous shift of hazel. “You’re, uh… You’re okay now, right?”

“Mm. I’ll be okay.”

“But you can’t…y’know. Fly. I mean, you couldn’t before, because of gravity and physics, but…”

“Yeah… I can’t fly.”

“Well…uh…you can still go to the moon and back just by doing anything for your friends and family. Then you can be their astronaut. Even if it means that you won’t be able to get to do the real thing.”

Sasha grabbed his hands and sighed, and let the words wash over her. Even if being a professional astronaut would be, currently, impossible for her to accomplish, she couldn’t deny his words. She would go to the moon and back for anyone, for her mother who defied the stereotypes at work and worked with airplanes every day, but specifically and especially the friends she called family: Mikasa who liked to decorate cakes, Erin and Eren who lived for acting and Armin who wrote scripts and plays; Jean who wrote books to give readers a new world to explore, Marco who could give a thousand and one facts about this date or that country; Krista in scrubs who saved lives, Ymir who would be able to travel to space and explore its wonders; and Connie who covered himself in paint and put his imagination on any surface he saw fit. They had won their way into her heart, an astronomer with an eye in the sky who would go to the moon and the back if it meant she could see their smiles.

“So, uh. Your friends wanna take me out to get gelato and get to know me.”

“Really? After almost killing you?”

“Hah, yeah, I guess. Pretty loving family, if you ask me.”

“They really are.”

As she walked out the barn to hugs and laughter and cheers, Sasha found that her happiness was restored. She wasn’t sure what her journey held in front of her, but she knew it would be alright. Her support would always be by her side, through the best and worst, and with them, she would defeat the odds stacked against her. With gray eyes, or freckles over cheeks; with smiles that shone in eyes, or a joke to spew; with two-toned hair or a wig worn in high confidence; with paint-stained fingertips; it would all be there to hold her, just like her own grasp, followed up with star-filled eyes, would hold them, to the moon and back.


End file.
